Born in Gletness, Shetland Islands, he came to Canada in 1908. He studied in Winnipeg at Wesley and Manitoba Colleges. Ordained in the United Church and later moving to the Unitarian Church, he represented various Calgary ridings as Labor and later CCF member of the House of Commons (1921-35, 1945-49). He was the author of The Farmer in Politics (1920), Co-operative Government (1929), and The Forces of Reconstruction (1934). In 1935 a play he had written, The Brains We Trust, was performed in Toronto.

More information:

William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical by Anthony Mardiros (1979).